Wicked Stars Past & Present Celebrate Fifth Birthday

28 Sep, 2011

Whatsonstage.com Award-winning musical Wicked last night celebrated five years in the West End at the Apollo Victoria Theatre.

The show, which has now grossed over £145 million at the box office and has played over 2000 performances is now the ninth longest running musical currently in the West End and the 18th longest running West End musical of all time. In December 2010, it became the first West End show to gross more than £1 million at the box office in a single week.

Wickedcurrently stars Rachel Tucker as Elphaba, winning the 2011 Whatsonstage.com Award for Best Takeover in a Role. She appears alongside Louise Dearman (Glinda), Mark Evans (Fiyero) Julie Legrand (Madam Morrible), Clive Carter (The Wizard), Zoe Rainey (Nessarose), Ben Stott (Boq) and Julian Forsyth (Doctor Dillamond).

It was recently announced that Gina Beck and Matt Willis will join the cast from 12 December 2011 taking over the roles of Glinda and Fiyero.

The Broadway musical, which opened in London on 27 September 2006 (previews from 6 September), tells the “untold story” of the Witches of Oz - popular blonde Glinda, aka the Good Witch of the North, and her spin-victim friend Elphaba – who were both immortalised in the 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz.

The show has a book by Winnie Holtzman, based on Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. It’s directed by Joe Mantello.

The cast were last night joined on stage for their curtain call and post-show party by cast members from the last five years including Kerry Ellis, Lee Mead, Alex Jessop, Alexia Khadime, George Ure, Jeremy Legat, James Gillan, Caroline Keiff, Cassandra Compton, Katie Rowley Jones, David Stoller, Harriet Thorpe, Sam Kelly, Desmond Barrit, Nigel Planer, Adam Garcia, Sarah Earnshaw, Dianne Pilkington, Cassidy Janson and Ashleigh Gray as well as executive producer.